by Amy Tintera
“You know that hunter?” she whispered.
“I ran into him a few months ago. I killed his two buddies. He got away.”
“He’s been drinking, and he didn’t look like he was sure. Maybe he’ll give up when he can’t find you.”
“Or he’ll tell someone his suspicions.”
Footsteps pounded the floor, a dark shape suddenly appearing around the corner. The figure came toward Em and Aren until she could clearly see Willem’s furious face.
“I know you.” He reached for the dagger on his belt. “I know—”
Em grabbed his arms, twisting them behind his back before he could find his weapon. Aren grabbed the dagger and pressed it to Willem’s throat.
“It needs to look like an accident,” Em said quickly. “A murder will make the entire castle suspicious.”
Willem sputtered as he fought against Aren’s hold on his throat.
“Get out of here,” Aren said, jerking his head at Em. “They can’t find you with us.”
Em opened her mouth to protest, even though she knew he was right.
“I have one more round before I can . . .” A laugh echoed through the hallway, and Aren and Em’s heads snapped up to find the source of the male voice.
Willem opened his mouth, a squeak escaping. Em clapped her hand over it. Aren slammed his hands against Willem’s chest, pushing him flat against the wall with the dagger jabbed into his throat. Willem kicked his leg, bucking his body wildly. Aren narrowed his eyes at the man’s legs, using his Ruined magic to make them go limp.
Willem tried to yell, the noise muffled by Em’s hand. She pressed down harder.
“Em, get out of here,” Aren breathed.
“Stop. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” the male voice said, closer this time.
Two guards appeared at the end of the hallway. Em stilled, not even daring to breathe. She recognized one of them.
Galo was the one who’d just spoken, and he smiled at the guard in front of him, oblivious to the three people only a few steps to his right.
The other guard grinned, leaning forward to plant a kiss on Galo’s lips. He said something Em couldn’t hear, then turned to walk away, throwing a smile at Galo over his shoulder.
Galo laughed, ducking his head as he slid his hands into his pockets. He began to turn to the right, in the direction of the dark hallway. Em sucked in a breath.
“Are we standing, or are we doing rounds?” a gruff voice called.
Galo’s gaze snapped forward. “Sorry, Julio.” He strode forward and out of sight.
Em’s legs almost collapsed under her in relief.
“A round means he’s doing a walk around the castle,” Aren whispered. “He’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Close his windpipe off,” Em said, using her other hand to cover Willem’s nose.
“You should get out—”
“If you lose hold of him after I leave, it will be even worse. Do it.”
Aren fixed his gaze on Willem’s throat. The hunter’s legs started to move. Closing off a windpipe took intense focus, and Aren couldn’t control the legs at the same time. Em shoved her body against Willem’s in an attempt to keep him still.
“I was supposed to be done with this,” Aren said through gritted teeth. “I was supposed to be done killing hunters before they killed me.”
“I know,” she said quietly. Willem’s body went limp, his head slumping to the side.
“Damian was supposed to lead the Ruined into Olso, not rot in some Lera cell while I stand guard over the people torturing him.” His voice was strangled, and getting too loud.
Em threw a glance over her shoulder, her heart beating in her throat. They were still alone, for now.
“I can’t let go yet,” Aren said more quietly. “He’s not dead yet.”
Em nodded and left her hands over Willem’s mouth and nose for almost a full minute. When Aren finally took a step back, the hunter’s eyes were open, staring blankly past them.
She braced her hands against Willem’s shoulders, keeping him upright. “Help me get him over to that table. We’ll bash his head on the corner. He reeks of alcohol. Won’t be hard to believe he fell.”
Aren grabbed the left side of his body, grunting beneath the weight.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Fine.” But his legs shook, beads of sweat appearing on his brow. Using his magic had weakened him.
“Do you still keep count? I used to count how many I killed,” Aren said as they stopped next to the table.
“Nah. I stopped several months ago. Turn him a little.” She grunted from the strain of Willem’s weight.
“Right there?” Aren asked, pointing to the edge of the table.
“Yeah. The side closest to me. Really launch him into it, so it leaves a mark. Ready?”
They shoved Willem down, the right side of his skull cracking against the wood. Em winced at the noise, turning to see if anyone had heard. Nothing.
Willem toppled to the ground, blood seeping from his head and pooling on the stone floor.
“Well, it left a mark.” Aren stared down at the hunter. He pointed at the pins on his chest. “I’ve killed fewer hunters than he has Ruined, though.” He murmured the last line almost to himself.
“Put his dagger back on his belt,” Em said quietly. Aren did as he was told, then stood motionless, staring at the dead hunter.
“I have to—” Em began.
“No, me first,” Aren interrupted. “No one can see you in this area.” He strode to the end of the hallway, the lantern lighting up his face. He jerked his head. “Clear.”
She darted out of the hallway and started to rush past him, toward the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses. She turned back suddenly, grabbing Aren’s arm and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you, Aren. I know it isn’t easy for you to be here, and it means so much to me that you chose to come.”
He shrugged, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Of course I came. I never considered the alternative.”
He hadn’t. The night she had proposed the idea, he had immediately volunteered to come with her, and then used a hot stone to burn off his one remaining Ruined mark. He hadn’t even hesitated.
“Go,” he said.
She wanted to stay with him, to sit next to him in front of a fire like they used to do after killing hunters. Aren always retreated into himself after he had to kill. But he never seemed to mind when she sat next to him quietly.
“Stay safe,” she said, letting go of his arm. “Let me know if anyone is suspicious.”
He waved her off without meeting her eye. She took one more glance at him over her shoulder, then pushed the door open and disappeared into the crowd of people.
FOURTEEN
CAS WATCHED AS the wagon rolled onto the south lawn. The guards and the king had been gone a long time with Damian. The sun had sunk low in the sky, casting a yellow-orange glow across the grass.
His father jumped off his horse and strode across the lawn to Cas. It had been a full day since Mary had told him off. The king scanned the area, and he seemed pleased to find that the prince was by himself.
“Did you get any information from Damian?” Cas asked.
The king shook his head. “No. I think it’s highly unlikely this one will talk. He doesn’t respond well to torture.”
Was there anyone who responded well to torture? Cas opened his mouth to ask, but was distracted by the guards pulling a limp Damian out of the wagon.
“He’s not dead, is he?” he asked, glancing sharply at his father.
“Not yet.”
Cas was determined to remain calm. His voice wasn’t going to shake.
“I’m going down there to talk to Damian,” he said.
“If you want,” the king said with a shrug.
“I’d like to offer to let him live if he gives us information.”
“You can offer it, but it would be a lie.”
“Why? You’ve let Ruined live befor
e. Olivia Flores is still alive.”
“Olivia Flores is useful, and still young enough to be controlled.”
Controlled didn’t sound like what his father had said about Olivia’s situation before. Mary was probably right about Olivia being a prisoner, not a guest.
“Where is Olivia?” he asked.
“Fort Victorra. Keep that to yourself. Not many people know where she is.”
The fortress in the Southern Mountains was the emergency meeting place if the castle was ever taken, and had a good supply of cells in the dungeons. They were not nice cells, from what Cas remembered.
“Is she in one of the cells there?” he asked.
“Of course she is. She can’t just roam around freely.”
Cas blinked away the image of a young girl chained up in those depressing cells. He needed to focus on the problem in front of him.
Cas gestured to where Damian was being dragged down the stairs. “What are his crimes?”
The king frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Lera law dictates that all accused are informed of their crimes and allowed a trial before the judge of their province. What are his crimes?”
“He’s a Ruined. That’s his crime.”
“Being a Ruined is a state of being, not a crime.”
His father’s eyebrows lowered, and he crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Excuse me?”
“He hasn’t actually committed a crime. Who’s to say that he ever would have used those powers against anyone if we’d left him alone? If we’d just left them all alone?”
“Yes, I’m sure all the people Wenda Flores tortured felt the same,” his father said flippantly. “The people she captured to let the Ruined practice on? The people of Vallos she slaughtered when she attempted to invade?”
“Damian is not Wenda Flores. Wenda Flores was one person, and she’s gone. We’re punishing all the Ruined for the crimes of the few.”
“The Ruined are not individuals. They act as a unit, always.” He gestured to where Damian had disappeared into the ground. “This is the only one you’ve met. You don’t understand.”
“Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I don’t understand.”
The king’s jaw twitched. “What is this? Is this what Mary thinks?”
“This is what I think.”
“What a coincidence that it comes out a few weeks after marrying that girl.” He said that girl as if it were a dirty word.
“The girl you ordered me to marry,” Cas reminded him.
The king grunted. “Nothing like her parents. Perhaps she forgot everything about them after they died, because those two detested the Ruined.” He let out a heavy sigh. “I was wrong to make you marry her without getting to know her first. If I’d known . . .”
“What?” Anger flared in Cas’s chest. “That she could think for herself? That she would challenge us, instead of going along with everything we said?”
The king frowned in thought, running a hand over his beard. “Maybe there’s a way to get you out of it.”
Cas reeled back, the words like a slap to the face. Unexpected panic crept in at the thought of losing Mary.
“You are not allowed to have an opinion on my marriage,” Cas said, his voice like ice. “That contract is between me and Mary now. Do you understand me?”
His father looked so astonished that he didn’t seem to have the words to reply to that.
“I’m going down to talk to Damian,” Cas said. “Maybe he’ll tell me if he’s actually committed a crime. If he has, then we can talk about appropriate punishment. But if he hasn’t, we’re holding and torturing a man who has done nothing wrong. I don’t know what’s more horrifying—our actions, or the fact that you don’t seem the least bit bothered by them.”
He turned away from his father’s startled face and descended the steps into the dungeon. He let out a slow breath, willing his heart to stop thumping a frantic rhythm in his chest. He was shaky but lighter, the weight of the words building inside him for so long finally gone.
“I—I can’t do that again. I—I don’t . . .” The male voice drifted up from below. Cas slowed his descent, listening.
“We’ll rotate the guards out,” Galo said. “No one will have to do this more than once.” He paused. “Ric, don’t you dare vomit down here.”
Cas took the last step. Two guards stood at the far wall, and Cas knew immediately which one was Ric. He was young and pale, his hands shaking. The guard quickly put them behind his back when he saw Cas.
“There’s no need for you two to be down here,” Cas said. “Will you wait at the top?” The guards nodded and rushed past him.
Galo stood in front of Damian’s cell, and Cas stopped next to him. Damian was crumpled on the floor, his face bloody and swollen. Fresh blood was smeared across his shirt.
“The hunters left, didn’t they?” Cas asked quietly.
“Yes. This morning. Except for the one who cracked his head open.”
“They never revived him?”
“No, he was dead when I got to him.”
“So my father had the guards take the lead torturing Damian.”
“Yes.”
Cas pushed his fingers through his hair. “Torture isn’t exactly in their job description.”
“No, it’s not. They asked for volunteers, but . . .”
“No one volunteered.” Cas felt a swell of pride for the guards suddenly. “Good for them.”
Damian’s head jerked as one of his eyes opened. The other was swollen shut. He rolled onto his side, and it seemed to take him a moment for him to focus well enough to recognize Cas standing at his cell door.
He laughed, a sad, hollow sound that echoed through the dungeon. He rolled over onto his back, wincing as he put a hand to his stomach.
“I’ve died, haven’t I?” he said, his voice laced with amusement. “Always figured there was punishment waiting for me after death. Your face is my punishment, isn’t it?”
“You’re not dead,” Cas said.
“Too bad.” Damian moved his jaw around, as if checking to see if it still worked.
“How old are you?” Cas asked.
Damian’s forehead crinkled as he frowned. He took several beats to answer. “Seventeen. Or eighteen. I lost track.”
“Do you have any family?”
“Yes. Though everyone related to me by blood has been murdered.” He lowered his voice. “But yes, I have family.”
“Is that why you were crossing into Olso? Are they there?”
He laughed, a genuine one that shook his chest. “No.”
Cas paused, glancing over at Galo. The guard stood only a few steps away, his brow furrowed as he watched them. He debated asking Galo to leave, but maybe Cas needed him to hear this conversation with Damian. He needed to know if Galo felt the same as Cas, or if his thinking was more in line with the king’s.
“The hunters killed your family,” Cas said. It wasn’t a question.
Damian’s jaw tensed. “Your hunters killed my family, yes.”
“Our hunters killed your family,” Cas repeated, because it was true. “What did you do before the Lera invasion?”
“What do you mean, what did I do?”
“You were about sixteen when we invaded, correct? Were you in school? Did Ruina have schools?”
“No. Parents educated their kids at home.” He hesitated. “But I was educated at the castle with Em and Olivia.”
“Em is Emelina?” Cas asked.
“Yes.”
“You were friends with the Flores sisters? Or related to them?”
“Friends.”
“Your parents must have known Wenda Flores, then.”
“Everyone knew Wenda,” Damian said, throwing an arm across his forehead. “It’s not like here, where you isolate yourself from your people like you’re scared of them.”
“Did you have training?” Cas asked. “Battle training?”
Damian barely lifted his
shoulders in a small shrug. He wasn’t answering that question.
“Were you involved in the raid on the Vallos castle?” Cas asked, thinking of Mary’s troubled expression yesterday when she asked about Damian.
Again, Damian just shrugged.
“Were you raised to hate everyone who wasn’t Ruined?”
Damian dropped his arm from his forehead, turning his head to look at Cas. “No.”
Cas glanced at Galo. The guard had his arms crossed over his chest, a serious expression on his face. He barely nodded at Cas, as if telling him to go on.
“Did you ever kill anyone before Lera invaded?”
“Ruined don’t kill each other. I didn’t have much contact with anyone else.” He snorted. “Can’t say that you guys have made a very good impression.”
“No, I guess not,” Cas said quietly.
A crease appeared between Damian’s eyebrows as he studied Cas. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then shut it, his frown deepening. Cas stepped back to join Galo against the wall. He ducked his head, his words only for the guard.
“Do you ever wonder,” he said to the ground, “if maybe we’re the dangerous ones, not the Ruined?”
Galo paused before answering. “All the time.”
FIFTEEN
“PLAN NUMBER ONE.” Em put one finger in the air as she paced across her bedroom. “We simply try to keep him alive until we’re ready to launch the attack. Then the castle will be ours anyway, and Damian can go free.”
Aren nodded, leaning against the wall and staring out the window. The sunlight streamed across his face and onto his blue guard shirt. “He’ll have to endure torture for a while,” he said softly.
“I know.” Em swallowed. “Plan number two. You volunteer for a shift down there, kill the other guard, and you and Damian make a run for it.”
“If he’s in any shape to run. Not to mention that me freeing Damian and disappearing will cast suspicion on you.”
She moaned, pushing her hands into her hair. “Forget plan number two. Or! Revise it. Make it look like Damian killed the other guard, used his Ruined magic to get out of the cell, and escaped by himself.”
“He’d still have a tough time getting over the castle wall. And evading the guards once he’s free.”
